Living at Home

Start the drumroll becuase last May (drummsss) I graduated from the University of Florida! Since then, I've moved back home and started an internship doing research and development for Chiquita. I see so many bananas everyday!! But more importantly, I've been able to cook much more easily (and make much more intricate things) now that I'm home. I can't believe I lived 4 years without an electric mixer. How did I survive??

One of the first dishes I made was a porcini mushroom risotto, one of my favorite dishes from Italy. I hit quite a few obstacles, however. My guests were gluten free, meat free, and dairy free. Since risotto is gluten free, that part was easy enough. Meat free may seem easy as well, but I usually cook it with chicken stock- had to scratch that! I also had to throw out any cheese or milk from the recipe- yikes!

Risotto, though it requires a lot of patience, is easy enough to make. First I cooked the rice a little in some oil in a large pan. At the same time, I soaked about half a cup of dried porcini mushrooms in a large cup of warm water- you'd be surprised how much flavor these pack in! When the rice started getting clear, I added about a cup of white wine, waited for the rice to soak it all up, and began adding the porcini water- little by little. You never want to drown the rice, but avoid having it dry up as well. When the porcini water ran out,  I continued adding water or vegetable broth.

When the rice looked almost cooked, I added the porcini mushrooms, some spinach for fun, and the VEGAN pamersan cheese I found. I personally think nothing could measure to the true deliciousness of real parmesano, but my friends really enjoyed this. The final product was fabulous!

Here are some photos I took with my phone:

Really lovely dinner with friends <3